A user may need to answer the
question of how much isolation between projects is needed. For many users, no
isolation is needed while for others complete isolation is needed. And then
others will only need some isolation. All of this may be achieved in TMG by any
user.

For this discussion, we will
assume here that the user has installed TMG in the default configuration. If
the user has installed TMG using the Advanced options described in the Data File
Storage topic in Help then the user will need to adjust this discussion based on
that difference. The Data Files Storage also describes the three basic kinds of
file storage used in TMG. Those three storage areas are:

User Data

User Program Data

Shared Program Data

When a user first installs TMG,
the environment of the installation is designed for basically a single project
(other than the SAMPLE project). However, the design permits the user to add as
many other projects as are needed. For this reason, we want to look at the User
Data folder in the user’s Documents (My Documents) folder. This folder is
normally entitled “The Master Genealogist v7” (in the default installation) and
its location in the user’s Documents folder indicates it use as the User Data
folder.

The default TMG installation
will also vary slightly between WinXP (and earlier) and WinVista or Win7.
Mostly this is between how the user accesses file in the user Documents or My
Documents folder. I will refer to the folders using the WinVista/Win7 style
(Documents). Those still using WinXP and earlier versions of Windows will need
to make the changes in the file paths. Thus the default TMG installation
(for v7x) will be like the display on the left

As you can see, all User Data
files are located under the basic The Master Genealogist v7 (TMG v7) folder with
each file group being in a separate sub-folder. When the user starts TMG and
selects to open the SAMPLE project then the SAMPLE project is placed in its own
sub-folder under the Projects folder. The layout now looks like is shown
in the illustration below on the right.

The user will likely then create
a new project and by default the new project will be located in the Projects
folder. After the project is created, if the user looks at the Projects folder
in Windows Explorer, the listing will include the following files (assuming the
user named the project JONES):

SAMPLE project
folder
End of line
ancestors.acc
Females who are
not living.flp
JONES_.pjc

There will be many other files
in addition to those noted above. But these are the main ones that we will be
discussing.

If the user then creates another
new project (say SMITH), then the file listing above will be like:

SAMPLE project
folder
Born in
Virginia or Tennessee.acc
End of line
ancestors.acc
Females who are
not living.flp
JONES_.pjc
SMITH_.pjc

Thus it may be seen that the two
JONES and SMITH projects will have all their data files located in the same
PROJECTS folder. While this may be just fine, most experienced computer users
will want the projects in separate folders. Thus it is recommended that the
JONES and SMITH projects be changed from the Project folder to each project’s
own sub-folder in a similar way to the SAMPLE project. This may be easily done
as follows:

Be sure to make a backup
of the project that you are moving to a new folder.

Open TMG and select to
open the SAMPLE project to get to the main TMG display.

Select File=>Copy Project
from the Main Menu.

In the Select a Project to
Copy window, highlight the JONES project.

Click on the [Open]
button.

A notice will display,
click on the [OK] button to acknowledge that message.

The Create a Project
window will now display.

In the upper part of the
window, click on the icon that is labeled Create new folder.

A new folder will be
created and highlighted allowing you to change the name of the folder.

Enter the new name of the
folder as the name of the project being copied into that new folder and
press the [Enter] key. The folder name may be the same as or different from
the project being copied.

Double-click on that new
folder to change focus of the window to the new folder.

In the file name field,
enter the name of the project. It may be the same as or different from the
project being copied.

Click on the [Open] button
and the project will be copied.

When copying is complete,
a notice to that effect will be displayed.

Click [OK] to acknowledge
the notice.

At this point, I suggest that
you open the copied project and ensure that it looks like it should.

Select File=>Open Project
from the TMG Main Menu.

Double-click on the folder
of the copied project.

Highlight the project file
name.

Click on the [Open] button
to open the project.

Browse through the project and
if all seems good then the copy process is complete. If you find something that
is wrong then it is suggested that you ask about it in an on-line forum (TMG-L
or the Wholly Genes Community Forum). If things look good (or you have cleared
up any questions that you may have then:

At this point, you will
probably want to delete the old version of the copied project (the one
located in the Projects folder and not the one copied into the new
sub-folder under Projects).

Select File=>Delete
Project from the TMG Main Menu.

The Select a Project to
Delete window will display.

Highlight the file that
you highlighted before (Except for the name, it will be something like
JONES_.PJC and with end in .PJC.

Click on the [Open]
button to delete the project.

A notice will display
asking if you are sure.

Click [OK] to acknowledge
the question and allow the deletion. (If you are unsure, click on the
[Cancel] button).

Another notice will
display giving you one last chance to not delete the project. If you have
no questions about the new location of the project then click on the [Yes]
button. If you still have questions, click on the [No] button and get those
questions resolved before starting this process at step 1 again.

After clicking the [Yes]
button, TMG will delete the project and display a notice to that effect.
Click on the [OK] button to acknowledge the notice.

Do the above three processes for
each project that you want to move to a sub-folder under the Projects folder.
The resulting list above for the Projects folder will now look like:

JONES project
folder
SAMPLE project
folder
SMITH project
folder
Born in
Virginia or Tennessee.acc
End of line ancestors.acc
Females who are
not living.flp

The User Data folder layout now
looks like the illustration on the right:

At this point, the only separate
files (ones not in project sub-folders) will be common and example
accent and filter files. Accent and Filter files are designed to be created and
used by individual projects although many filters and accents may be used by any
or all projects. If you want any common or example filters and
accents from the Projects folder to be available for use in the (say) JONES
project then they need to be copied to the JONES sub-folder. This is most
easily done by copying those filter and accents using Windows Explorer. Just
browse to the Projects folder (or whatever folder contains the filters or
accents to be copied), highlight the desired filters and accents and copy them
to the desired project sub-folder.

At this point, you may want to
make certain of your own common and the example filters and
accents available for use with any new project that you create. In that
case, again use Windows Explorer to copy the desired common filters and
accents from a project sub-folder to the Projects folder. This may include many
example filters and accents located in the SAMPLE project sub-folder.

Now when you create a new
project, any common or example filters and accents located in the
Projects folder will be available to that new project IF the new project is
created in a project folder when the project is created. You can create the new
project in a sub-folder just like we did above. But if you follow the steps
below to create the new project, the project will be automatically placed in its
own sub-folder, and the common and example accents and filters
from the Projects folder will be copied to the new project sub-folder
automatically.

Select File=>New Project
from the TMG Main Menu.

If you already have a
sub-folder for the new project, go to step 6.

In the upper part of the
Create New Project window, click on the icon for Create New Folder.

As above the folder name
“New Folder” will be created and highlighted to allow you to change the
name.

Enter the name of the new
project sub-folder and press [Enter]. As above, you can have the same name
and the project or it may be different. I keep project folder names the same
as the project located in them.

Double-click on the new
folder to change the focus of the window to the new folder.

Enter the name of the new
project in the File name field and click on the [Open button.

If you already have a
project open in TMG, you will be asked if you wish to close it. If you do,
click on the [Yes] button and it will close and the new project will be
created. If you don’t want to close the currently open project, click on the
[No] button, the project will remain open and the new project will continue
to be created. Clicking on the [Cancel] button will allow you to stop this
process and start over (the newly created sub-folder will remain).

As the new project is
being created in the sub-folder, TMG will automatically copy any common
or example filters and accents into the new project sub-folder.

After the new project
(named say BROWN) the listing of the Project folder will be like:

Now when you open the
BROWN project, any filters and accents that were in the Project folder will
have been copied to the BROWN sub-folder and will be available for use in
that project. Any that you do not wish to remain can be deleted if you
desire.

Now we have projects in separate
folder and thus are separate from each other. However, there are other files
used in projects that may be common to all projects, just some projects, or only
to certain individual projects. Most of these files are located in the folders
of the TMG User Data layout. These other folders are:

Backups

Configuration_files

Exhibits

Exports

FDE -------- (not
presently used)

Logs

Repeat_files

Report_output

Slideshow

Timelines

Many of these folders will be
common to all projects as any file located in a folder can be easily known to
belong to a certain project or is common to all projects. Some of these folders
may contain files that are specific to a certain project. In such a case, the
user will want to ensure that such files be placed where they may be accessed
only by the one project. Then there may be some folders whose certain files may
be common to more than one project, but not to all project.

TMG allows the user to specify
project by project which folders are used by which project. This is
accomplished for each project by opening the project and selecting
File=>Preferences from the Main Menu, and opening the Advanced option under
Current Project Options. The user may then select any Path and change it to
some other path making the new path point to a specifically designated folder
for the project in question.

To accomplish this, we would
copy (using Windows Explorer) the underlined folders above to each project
sub-folder and change the appropriate Preferences=>Advanced option paths to the
new folder locations. Note that the user may, if desired, copy more of the
folders above as desired. It would up to the user to determine how much project
separation is needed and which folders are need to be specific to any one
project. The following comments may help deciding which additional folder(s)
might be copied to some or all project sub-folders.

For example, there would not
likely be project corruption if the Backups had Backup files from multiple
projects in the same folder. Similarly, the Exports and Report_output folder
would probably not cause problems from one project to another. In these three
cases, the user may prefer such separation just for personal desire otherwise
just leave them alone.

Timelines would also not likely
cause a problem by having all Timelines in the same folder although that could
be possible. In this case, if a Timelines folder were copied to a specific
project folder then there would be redundancy in having most or all the Timeline
files being duplicated in two or more folders. If only one or two Timelines
were specific to a project then I would ensure that the name of the Timeline
reflected the name of the project to help the user remember not to use that
Timeline in some other project. This would allow using the default Timelines
folder for all projects, eliminate redundancy and thus use less disk space.

After copying these underlined
folders above to each project sub-folder or for a new project sub-folder, the
contents of a project sub-folder will look like:

Other project sub-folders would
look similar with the difference being the name of the folder and the name of
the project. Over time, there may be other differences. There will be new
filters and accents that are not in other projects. The Repeat_files folder
will contain similar files top the comparable folder in other project, but the
content of the files will be different. The Configuration_files folder may or
may not contain similar file to that of other projects depending on the reports
generated for this project and the configuration of those reports. The Exhibits
will almost certainly contain different files based on the project as compared
to the other projects. Finally, the Slideshow folder will contain different
files based on what Slideshows have been created.

Other Data folders

Now, there are certain
files/folders used in projects and these files/folders have not been discussed.
These would be the Shared Program Data (SPD) and User Program Data (UPD). Few
of the files in these areas would affect users and their projects. But, there
are some that could cause problems in some (mostly minor) cases.

User Program Data

The mostly likely files in the
UPD that a user would encounter which might cause problems would be Custom
Layouts and Toolbars. Still, with discrete Layout/Toolbar naming then this
should not be a problem. And with the file layout as discussed for a project
sub-folder above, this would not be a problem because any Custom Report
Definitions designed for another project would not be available for a different
project as the Custom Report Definition would be stored in the
Configuration_files folder assigned to the project for which it was designed.
Also a filter created for that Report Definition would also be stored in the
other project sub-folder. So, a Custom Layout could have a Custom Toolbar with
an option to call a Custom Report Definition that used a specific filter
designed for a different project. But the Toolbar option would not work because
the Report Definition could not be found and any filter would also not be found.

Some other files in UPD relate
to web access which is not often customized But if there is customization there
may be some momentary user confusion at selecting a web site meant for use with
a different project. But there should be no real problem insofar as the project
is concerned.

The log of the Message Manager
is also located in the UPD folder as is the file to hold the current program
configuration as set by the user. Finally, the files for the various DNA
templates (not data) are stored here as are color hue files. These are not
likely to be customized all that much and it is only a display problem is there
is any customizing.

Shared Program Data

As for the SPD, this folder
contains folders to hold Buttons and Graphics to use in creating Toolbars and
Layouts and for use in other areas of the programs. It also holds Frames to be
used by Visual Chartform. It also contains color tint files used by the report
writer. The SPD also contains three databases: the State abbreviations database
(used at report generation time), the Quicktips database (tips displayed at
startup), and the Monarchs database (used with the Regnal Calculator). If there
is any customization in this area, it is available to all projects equally.